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So I decided to pick up Super Mario 3D World at Target today because in case you didnt know, its on sale for $39.99
Couple that with my Employee Discount (yes i work at target) and my redcard and that made the game $30 Which I was comfortable spending because I didnt like the original Pricetag of the game at all. Its hard for me to justify spening $60 On mario games anymore due to the Short time and Lackluster opinion I had going into the game.

Needless to say, I was shocked. This game is much better then my expectations were of it. I was expecting it to be Like 3D LAND DLC or something of the sort, not making a really good console game. But man was I wrong. While the levels are short, the design and gameplay is really well done. Its a really fun game. And I'm glad they actually made the effort to hide the Green Stars (star coins basically) instead of shoving them in my face. I actually find myself keeping my eye out for them instead of just aimlessly running into them like "Oh look... another one."

All in all if you still have doubts about the game or are like me and cant justify spending a ton of money on the game, Now is a good time to pick it up. You cant even find it used cheaper anywhere else.

As Someone who is certainly not the Wii U's biggest fan, I have to say im glad im taking it out of the drawer again to play this. Hopefully Nintendo releases DLC for this like they did with New Super Luigi U. And hell, Maybe ill pick up Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze if it goes on sale for this price later too

Nintendo thrives off people becoming so disenchanted that a handful of minor changes can suddenly make the experience feel magical again. I assure you, you'll stop giving a shit about Mario again before too much longer.

World's main appeal is its 4 player 3D play and the new cat power. These additions are small, but seriously make a world (pun totally intended) of difference. Its why I too was blown away by how surprisingly fun this game is.

Nintendo is basically the king of gameplay perfection. In the last 20 years, they have only released 5 full 3-D Mario platformers on their home consoles. With the exception of Galaxy II, which was basically an add-on of the original Galaxy, all these games have struck a nearly perfect balance between familiarity and novelty. I have not played this game yet, but I can appreciate the attempt to take a 3-D platformer, add good multiplayer, and make the level design more in the speed-racing linear tradition with just enough secrets to make it feel non-linear, in the tradition of Super Mario World.

Not everyone will like this. Some prefer that more exploratory, open-world designs of Mario 64, Sunshine, or Galaxy, but this is the price of innovation.

In any case, I would not buy a Wii U just for this game like I would for Zelda, but it will be one of the first games I will play when I get a Wii U. While Mario games are no longer a big draw for me (heck, I'm almost 30, so I know how they play and won't be blown-away by the novelty of it all like some of these younger kids, and I don't feel like I in a rush to finish them all. I like the ability just to sit down for ten minutes, do a level, and then shut off the console), they are still some of the best examples of interactive medium as a pure art form, without the need for the "Hollywoodization" of games that seems to be the trend at Sony for the last half-decade.

The WMs around me haven't had it less then 60 since it came out, which is also the Walmart.com price. So 39.99 is a fantastic deal for most people. Which is borne out by the slickdeals thread on it and how fast it sold out a lot of places.

On another note, you get an employee discount on sale items? That's cool. We don't at WM and didn't at CVS.

Still, coming from a non-fanatic Wii U owner, this is heartwarming. I'll definitely give the game a go once I finally lay my hands on my own (heavily reduced in price ;O; ) Wii U. I'm particularly interested in the co-op aspect, I've had loads of fun playing NSMB co-op and SM3DW's co-op looks remarkably similar.

As in: they do well because they let things get stale to the point where people start questioning whether the next purchase will be worthwhile. For example, look at the New Super Mario series: how much has really changed in that since the DS release? Really? Not much. Not much at all. Most releases in that series since feel more like level packs than the new games they were being sold as. Once that starts getting stale and consumers start questioning Nintendo, suddenly "Super Mario 3D Land" appears, adding depth to the normally linear levels of the past. It's nothing amazing, but it's just enough to pull you back in and think "wow, this here is what Mario needed". Then, you just add a new power to the console release, and suddenly it's as if they've brought about some amazing innovation and not just a slightly modified version of the 3DS game. You love Mario again ever so temporarily until the new becomes the old, and suddenly Mario feels stale again. That's when Nintendo will pull something else small out of their ass, nothing revolutionary to the game play or general game plot at all, and will push it so hard that you once again believe it's the game changer that Nintendo needed to keep selling the series.

It's essentially a system of pushing something as far as they can until it doesn't work anymore, seeing how much people will take before they have to tweak it a little bit. When you get down to it, what really separates some of the newer Mario games from even the NES/SNES titles? A new power and levels that go deep instead of just being a linear path? Is that really so impressive when you see that some innovation does exist in Nintendo when they released the Galaxy titles? Is it really that great when you see that the "3D Land" titles essentially just combine the worst parts of the 3D and 2D experiences? There is literally nothing new here. In fact, they've fallen back to the old style of forced time limits and extra lives time and time again, archaic concepts to build a game around that once existed because games would be too damned short if you didn't impose some walls for the sake of artificial difficulty to lengthen the game.

Of course, those that love Mario's slight tweaks also praise Pokemon for the minor changes they make from release to release, ignoring the fact that not a lot has really been changed that can be deemed imperative to the series since G/S/C. It is essentially exactly what has been done with CoD, yet, you see Nintendo fans attack the frequent releases and lack of true changes to no end.

To sum it up: Super Mario 3D World is nothing special. Nintendo can effectively trick you into thinking it is by setting your expectations for their innovations to a series to be abysmally low, but in the end, as well as the main reason that I have essentially quit Nintendo, nothing really new happens. Without fail, Nintendo has abused every mascot they have to the point where I have no expectations, and yet they still disappoint me.

As in: they do well because they let things get stale to the point where people start questioning whether the next purchase will be worthwhile. For example, look at the New Super Mario series: how much has really changed in that since the DS release? Really? Not much. Not much at all. Most releases in that series since feel more like level packs than the new games they were being sold as. Once that starts getting stale and consumers start questioning Nintendo, suddenly "Super Mario 3D Land" appears, adding depth to the normally linear levels of the past. It's nothing amazing, but it's just enough to pull you back in and think "wow, this here is what Mario needed". Then, you just add a new power to the console release, and suddenly it's as if they've brought about some amazing innovation and not just a slightly modified version of the 3DS game. You love Mario again ever so temporarily until the new becomes the old, and suddenly Mario feels stale again. That's when Nintendo will pull something else small out of their ass, nothing revolutionary to the game play or general game plot at all, and will push it so hard that you once again believe it's the game changer that Nintendo needed to keep selling the series.

It's essentially a system of pushing something as far as they can until it doesn't work anymore, seeing how much people will take before they have to tweak it a little bit. When you get down to it, what really separates some of the newer Mario games from even the NES/SNES titles? A new power and levels that go deep instead of just being a linear path? Is that really so impressive when you see that some innovation does exist in Nintendo when they released the Galaxy titles? Is it really that great when you see that the "3D Land" titles essentially just combine the worst parts of the 3D and 2D experiences? There is literally nothing new here. In fact, they've fallen back to the old style of forced time limits and extra lives time and time again, archaic concepts to build a game around that once existed because games would be too damned short if you didn't impose some walls for the sake of artificial difficulty to lengthen the game.

Of course, those that love Mario's slight tweaks also praise Pokemon for the minor changes they make from release to release, ignoring the fact that not a lot has really been changed that can be deemed imperative to the series since G/S/C. It is essentially exactly what has been done with CoD, yet, you see Nintendo fans attack the frequent releases and lack of true changes to no end.

To sum it up: Super Mario 3D World is nothing special. Nintendo can effectively trick you into thinking it is by setting your expectations for their innovations to a series to be abysmally low, but in the end, as well as the main reason that I have essentially quit Nintendo, nothing really new happens. Without fail, Nintendo has abused every mascot they have to the point where I have no expectations, and yet they still disappoint me.

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You know, I think it is pretty silly to talk about someting like the side-scrolling or 3-D Mario franchises without a little bit of context.

People typically buy into a franchise as a fan because there are elements that they really enjoy about it. Nintendo has created a lot of those elements over the years, and if they leave too many of them out, they risk alienating fans.

Compare 3-D or side-scrolling Mario to the most successful non-Nintendo franchises: The Sims, Need for Speed, Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, Fifa, and Grand Theft Auto. I would say, for example, that each major release of 3D Mario: 64, Sunshine, Galaxy I&II and SM3DW was, on average, at least as innovative as most of these other 100+ million sellers.

Now, if they come out with a Grand Theft Auto that does not revolve around third person shootings, car racing, mediocre plots about the criminal underworld, and various forms of fetch or taxi quests involving those elements, then maybe I would buy the argument that Super Mario is staler than the competition.

As in: they do well because they let things get stale to the point where people start questioning whether the next purchase will be worthwhile. For example, look at the New Super Mario series: how much has really changed in that since the DS release? Really? Not much. Not much at all. Most releases in that series since feel more like level packs than the new games they were being sold as. Once that starts getting stale and consumers start questioning Nintendo, suddenly "Super Mario 3D Land" appears, adding depth to the normally linear levels of the past. It's nothing amazing, but it's just enough to pull you back in and think "wow, this here is what Mario needed". Then, you just add a new power to the console release, and suddenly it's as if they've brought about some amazing innovation and not just a slightly modified version of the 3DS game. You love Mario again ever so temporarily until the new becomes the old, and suddenly Mario feels stale again. That's when Nintendo will pull something else small out of their ass, nothing revolutionary to the game play or general game plot at all, and will push it so hard that you once again believe it's the game changer that Nintendo needed to keep selling the series.

It's essentially a system of pushing something as far as they can until it doesn't work anymore, seeing how much people will take before they have to tweak it a little bit. When you get down to it, what really separates some of the newer Mario games from even the NES/SNES titles? A new power and levels that go deep instead of just being a linear path? Is that really so impressive when you see that some innovation does exist in Nintendo when they released the Galaxy titles? Is it really that great when you see that the "3D Land" titles essentially just combine the worst parts of the 3D and 2D experiences? There is literally nothing new here. In fact, they've fallen back to the old style of forced time limits and extra lives time and time again, archaic concepts to build a game around that once existed because games would be too damned short if you didn't impose some walls for the sake of artificial difficulty to lengthen the game.

Of course, those that love Mario's slight tweaks also praise Pokemon for the minor changes they make from release to release, ignoring the fact that not a lot has really been changed that can be deemed imperative to the series since G/S/C. It is essentially exactly what has been done with CoD, yet, you see Nintendo fans attack the frequent releases and lack of true changes to no end.

To sum it up: Super Mario 3D World is nothing special. Nintendo can effectively trick you into thinking it is by setting your expectations for their innovations to a series to be abysmally low, but in the end, as well as the main reason that I have essentially quit Nintendo, nothing really new happens. Without fail, Nintendo has abused every mascot they have to the point where I have no expectations, and yet they still disappoint me.

Nintendo thrives off people becoming so disenchanted that a handful of minor changes can suddenly make the experience feel magical again. I assure you, you'll stop giving a shit about Mario again before too much longer.

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Oh, just like the makers of Final Fantasy, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and every other major franchise in existence. I don't seem to recall those franchises doing anything revolutionary, original or super exciting in the past, so....

Of course, those that love Mario's slight tweaks also praise Pokemon for the minor changes they make from release to release, ignoring the fact that not a lot has really been changed that can be deemed imperative to the series since G/S/C. It is essentially exactly what has been done with CoD, yet, you see Nintendo fans attack the frequent releases and lack of true changes to no end.

To sum it up: Super Mario 3D World is nothing special. Nintendo can effectively trick you into thinking it is by setting your expectations for their innovations to a series to be abysmally low, but in theend, as well as the main reason that I have essentially quit Nintendo, nothing really new happens. Without fail, Nintendo has abused every mascot they have to the point where I have no expectations, and yet they still disappoint me.

Click to expand...

The same could be said of other games. Like the incremental updates in COD or Final Fantasy or GTA, what makes the newer iterations so much better than the ones in the past? A new gun, a new shield, a new car, or a new protagonist? Activision can trick you into thinking a new COD game is 1000 times better than the last one by adding a few new weapons and multiplayer modes and pass it off as revolutionary. If Nintendo is the offender to this practice, other companies are just as guilty. They're not the godlike, immaculate companies you make them out to be. No company is perfect. Go bitch about Nintendo's unoriginal issues to someone who gives a shit.

Never mind that you avoid Nintendo-related games, yadda yadda yadda, that's all well and good, but for crying out loud, don't single them out while blindly assuming that other companies are perfect and never make mistakes with their games either.

you are complaining that mario 64 is essentialy mario sunshine with a twitch in the engine here and there.

while you praise CoD for bringing a whole new element to the game, this time CoD with shields!

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I didn't defend CoD. I used CoD as an example of precisely what Nintendo does, especially in this past year with a flood of unoriginal Mario for the struggling Wii U, as well as what they did on the Wii with the New Super Mario Bros. thing that leaked onto the Wii U as well when it should have stayed on the DS where it belonged. With games like Galaxy being possible, Nintendo has clearly become too desperate to give two shits about even trying to innovate in the series. I also don't recall bashing Mario 64, Sunshine, or Galaxy. If I'm not mistaken, those are excluded or strengthen my argument, as I used Galaxy as an example of what should be done, and completely exclude the N64 and Gamecube from my argument.

Of course, if you want to put words in my mouth and make assumptions, I'm sure the Nintendo fanboys will eat it up.

The same could be said of other games. Like the incremental updates in COD or Final Fantasy or GTA, what makes the newer iterations so much better than the ones in the past? A new gun, a new shield, a new car, or a new protagonist? Activision can trick you into thinking a new COD game is 1000 times better than the last one by adding a few new weapons and multiplayer modes and pass it off as revolutionary. If Nintendo is the offender to this practice, other companies are just as guilty. They're not the godlike, immaculate companies you make them out to be. No company is perfect. Go bitch about Nintendo's unoriginal issues to someone who gives a shit.

Never mind that you avoid Nintendo-related games, yadda yadda yadda, that's all well and good, but for crying out loud, don't single them out while blindly assuming that other companies are perfect and never make mistakes with their games either.

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CoD: Everybody recognizes it's not too great anymore and hasn't been for at least half a decade now. Even people who were total CoD fanboys are waking up to the fact that the developers weren't trying hard enough to make the games new and original experiences.

Final Fantasy: Way to name the series that has completely divided its fanbase over the past few years precisely because of the fact that they keep trying to change so much that it's hard for it to actually be fun. Of course, something of note is the fact that Final Fantasy games are RPGs. They depend on the story to sell it with the gameplay to back it up, not like Mario that is highly dependent on the gameplay while putting the story in the backseat of a handful of generic Mario plots that they have. Back in the NES/SNES era, this series changed quite a bit from installment to installment, most notably in that each title refines the battle system and tries different means of character development through the sixth game. Seven through nine were admittedly hit or miss. Seven was kind of bland in the long run, eight had kinks to workout that never really were, and nine was arguably the best of the PS One era games in terms of story and ability system. Regardless, that wasn't a shining time for FF innovation. Then you hit PS2 era where you have X, which sharply changes development once again with a story that deviates from the other nine titles. Then XI was a freakin' MMO. XII was a monstrosity of too much poorly implemented change. XIII has gone from shit, to slightly less shit, to somewhat acceptable shit from the first through the third game, still trying quite a few things to mix up the series. XIV is another MMO that had to be redeveloped from the ground up because the original sucked so badly.

So yeah, Square Enix may not be very good at making FF games anymore as a whole, but it's hard to argue that they don't at least try to freshen up the series from installment to installment these days.

GTA: People just adore the story and absurdity of GTA. It has a style that very, very few games are able to replicate in any way, shape, or form. Although not a lot changes from game to game (except between generations of systems), it's hard to bash a series that has been around for about 20 years and only released five main installments, with a handful of side games (primarily for the PSP) that did decently enough.

Now, tell me, what does Nintendo commonly do wrong that those other game franchises are either trying to correct or were never really guilty of in the first place? I'm not saying that Nintendo can't periodically press out a diamond with the likes of Mario, but they're clearly just not trying very hard anymore.

For me the biggest appeal was the multiplayer. That alone was a huge improvement, since they've never done a 3D multiplayer mario before (no, SMG doesn't count). But I was pleasantly surprised like you at the effort they put into level design this time around. The levels are well designed and varied and it seems like they put way more effort into this game than SM3DL.
I hope (and think) that DKC: Tropical Freeze will be a similarly pleasant surprise.

Sadly this seems to be the case with a lot of handheld releases (most, even). They just don't have the same effort put into them. I've seen this time and time again, there are exceptions of course (Mario Kart 7 being a notable one), but it remains to be seen whether Wii U will have the superior Smash Bros. version or whether the same effort will be put into the 3DS one.

But I was pleasantly surprised like you at the effort they put into level design this time around.

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Honestly, I can't see it.

I mean, every level is made up of cubes (or other simple objects) and because of that there's little variety in level design. Many of the environments are just so flat and empty. Sunshine Seaside is a perfect example of this. It's mostly just a flat plane with little hills, which is ridiculous. Every single underwater level is the same, sidescrolling through a flat, mostly empty space. There might be a small group of enemies here and there, but because it's a 3D game you can just move past them.

If any other game tried to get away with this lack of effort it would be condemned as shovelware. But it's Super Mario 3D World, and it's illegal to dislike any aspect of 3D World, under rule of blind fanboy-ism.

My point is that they designed the levels with 2D games in mind (obviously), but that meant forgoing all the benefits of having a 3D environment. No complexity, no variety, it's just platform-to-platform. No adventuring, just mindless jumping.

I've owned the Mario 3D Land since it came out, and I still find that little gem addictive as I did the first day! That to me says that Nintendo has still got it.
Over all, the game felt like the closest thing to classic Mario, since Mario went 3D. It is really an interesting experience, and the stars, yes the stars! Figuring out where they are all at is so much fun!

I'll never understand why people have such hate towards the franchise. I guess it's the trap of becoming disenchanted and not feeling comfortable letting go...